


Dragon Heart

by bluebeholder



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Genetic Memory, Pain, Qunari (Dragon Age) Physiology, Transformation, Way of the Reaver, it's a bloody one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23737198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Becoming a reaver is a path only for those willing to suffer to achieve new heights of power. Kubide Adaar is more than willing, needing more strength to lead the Inquisition. But drinking dragon's blood is a dangerous act.The consequences remain to be seen.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Dragon Heart

Kubide dreams of flying.

Of soaring high above the ground, seeing the world spread out like a map beneath her, only the clouds for company in an endless sky. The dreams make her heart sing, but they’re thin and pale. Visions, nothing more substantial. Such dreams always fade the moment she opens her eyes and she puts them out of her mind.

Since coming to Skyhold, though, they’ve grown stronger. Perhaps it’s the fact that merely walking the walls allows her to see the panorama of the mountains spread out around her, or that clouds will often roll in and blanket Skyhold in thick, cold fog. In this castle, they are as high now as she’s ever dreamed of being.

The giddy joy when she looks over the ramparts to the sheer drop into nothingness makes Kubide feel like a little girl again. When she was about ten years old, her parents had settled on a small farm with a creek winding through a hollow on the land. Her father had hung a knotted rope swing from a tree on the bank, and Kubide had spent hours climbing it and swinging from it. Her favorite moment had always been to swing as high as she could, reaching as high as the swing could go, and then let go of the rope as she soared over the creek. For a brief, brilliant moment, she would look up at the sky, hanging in the air, feeling like she flew.

And then she’d fall and splash into the deep creek, and forget.

Last night Kubide had dreamed of flying again.

This morning she wakes eagerly—yesterday had been the return from collecting the list of ingredients for Breaker Thram’s dragon blood distillation, the substance Thram promised would give Kubide new power as a reaver. She’ll be spending the day laboring over the distillation, so that tonight she can use it.

Kubide spends an extra moment at the mirror, making sure her hair is braided up well out of her eyes. The mirror is Antivan, a gift from some noble Josephine knows, and shows Kubide’s face well. As she pins and ties, fumbling with the thick white curls, the tip of her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, she can’t help examining herself in the mirror. Smooth horns, half a foot tall, arcing gracefully back over her head. Dark gray skin, weathered and freckled in darker gray. Wide, angular face; square jaw. Heavy forehead, thick white eyebrows, a broad, hooked nose, thin lips. And her eyes, with thick white lashes, wide. Her irises are shocking yellow and what are the whites of the eyes on everyone else are, on her, pitch black.

With her hair adequately held out of her face, Kubide sits back and stretches her hands and arms, aching from being held over her head so long. “Time to get to work,” she murmurs, and goes to make her distillation. Thram won’t have patience much longer.

The workroom table, although the legs have been elevated on stacks of bricks so Kubide doesn’t have to bend over quite as far, still leaves her back aching by the end of the day. There’s much to do: work with a mortar and pestle, heating the herbs and plants over the fire to decoct their essence, allowing them to steep in the blood. Adding prepared lyrium—provided by Thram—to the mixture. Then there are the rites that she’s discovered, which are not magical in themselves but have a gravity of their own all the same. It brings her to a trancelike state, a calm like nothing she’s ever felt before. All of it takes hours. At long last, though, she finishes the distillation.

Kubide holds the glass vial up to the light and examines the liquid inside. It is a deeper crimson than any wine she’s ever seen, seeming to have wisps of smoke curling through it. The vial is slightly warm to the touch.

As she leaves the workroom, Kubide still feels that surreal sense of calm and purpose. There is no doubt. She meets Breaker Thram in a private room where they won’t be disturbed. Kubide is quite sure that some members of the Inquisition would object to what she’s about to do. The Iron Bull, a reaver himself, certainly wouldn’t, but anyone with ties to the Chantry might be concerned. Drinking blood does look alarmingly like blood magic, after all, whether she’s a mage or not.

Thram is waiting with an iron chalice. “Did you complete it?” she asks, looking up at Kubide.

“I did.”

Kubide offers her the vial and Thram takes it. She holds it up to the light of the single lantern, examining it from many angles and swirling it. “Good,” she says. She lowers the vial. “All is in order.”

“What now?” Kubide asks.

“Now it is time to make your choice. This path is not for the meek or the humble. It is not for the cowardly or the fearful. It means you will have power and be feared for that power, the way that the dragons themselves are feared. You will have their ferocity flowing in your veins. Will you become a reaver, Kubide Adaar?”

“Yes,” Kubide says.

Slowly, with great ceremony, Thram pours the liquid in the vial into the iron chalice. She offers it to Kubide with both hands. “Then let us break you,” Thram says.

Without hesitation, Kubide takes the chalice. She lifts it to her lips and downs it in one long swallow. It burns going down, but the burn doesn’t fade. It’s as if she’s swallowed the very embers of a fire. The fire takes root in her belly and spreads, coursing through her, and it _hurts_. As if she’s burning alive from the inside.

The chalice clangs to the stone floor and Kubide follows, dropping to her knees and clutching at her body. Her sharp teeth bite through her lower lip, blood dripping down her chin. She struggles for breath, looking up at Thram desperately, but the elf merely folds her arms and watches, implacable.

“Your destruction is your birth,” Thram says.

The searing pain spreads through her chest, wrapping talons around her heart and squeezing, scraping her skin and tearing at her flesh. Kubide crumbles, toppling to her side, unable to bear her own weight. Her muscles spasm, throat closing against a scream, so she can only gasp for air.

Visions chase through her mind, of blood and death, of fire and smoke, sharp teeth and claws. She claws at her head, pain seizing her as if her head is in a vise. Her very _bones_ shriek, bending under the pain, and at last Kubide finds her breath.

Fire and blood burst from her mouth with a scream that shakes the ground.

And then there is blessed, blessed darkness, and a cessation of pain.

She wakes up quite slowly, in her own bed. The world is crisp and clear, and so is her memory of the ritual. Kubide lies still for a moment, cataloguing her body and feeling for pain. There is none, except an ache on her temples where she scratched herself. Experimentally, she opens her mouth and breathes out. No fire. _That_ must have been a hallucination.

Morning light pours in her window, the pale Skyhold morning filled with the song of birds in the mountains and the rustle of wind in the pine trees below the castle walls. She shifts a little, rolling her shoulders, and finds that her padded headrest has been put beneath her head. Someone put her in more comfortable clothes and she has been quite thoroughly tucked in bed. They must have moved her while she was insensate.

Kubide sits up slowly, stretching a stiff back and becoming aware of sharp hunger pangs. How long was she out? It must have been more than a day, at least. Pushing her hair from her eyes, Kubide looks around to see Dorian, fully dressed, asleep sitting in a chair by the door. She smiles. They’ve been taking care of her, then.

Quietly, Kubide slides out of bed and winces as her bare feet touch the cold stone floor. She feels different, somehow, a subtle _something_ she can’t quite define. As if the world has become sharper. The scent of the pines, of Dorian’s perfume, of her own body—all are clearer and more distinct. She can even smell bread baking in the distant kitchen. Sounds are crisper, too, easier to hear, and her vision has certainly become clearer.

She reaches up to rub at the stiff slope of her shoulder and pauses. The fabric of her nightshirt scrapes oddly over what should have been smooth skin. Was she injured?

Kubide twists her head, trying to see, and at last with a grunt of irritation goes to the mirror to look. There, she has to pause and simply _stare_.

She looks _different_. Her horns are longer, and ridged where before they were smooth. If she opens her mouth, she can see that her teeth are longer and sharper than before. When she pulls her shirt collar to the side, there’s a subtle dappling of small _scales_ on the skin of her shoulders and back. Her hands have true claws now, thick and dark. And her eyes…

Her eyes look like molten gold.

When she leans closer, jaw dropped in awe, Kubide can see fires dancing in their depths.

Not long after, Dorian awakes, and there is much to explain and much more to apologize for. She’s been out for three days and three nights, it seems, scaring everyone to death. Kubide willingly accepts a scolding from every one of her companions and advisors, and also accepts embraces from most of them.

“Looking good,” the Iron Bull says simply, giving her a nod of approval when she passes him in the courtyard.

“If I do, it’s in spite of myself,” Kubide says, and they share a brief laugh. She eyes him, seeing no sign of scales or other such physical changes. He’d performed the same rite she had. Where are the signs? “Never had anything quite _that_ strong before.”

He claps her on the shoulder, looking at her steadily. “Don’t get too drunk on it, ataashi.”

_Ataashi_. She doesn’t know much Qunlat but that—that one she knows. _Dragon_. Kubide meets his gaze and there it is. She’d never noticed before, but his eye, too, has fire dancing in its depths. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

He walks away, after that, looking for Krem; Kubide lets him go without further conversation. She has plenty of business to attend to, in between eating everything she can get her hands on. (Her sense of taste has sharpened, too, as it turns out.) She also makes time to train a little, testing out her new abilities, and is _very_ satisfied with what she can do. Between that, scoldings, meetings, paperwork, and many snacks, it is very late by the time that Kubide finally falls into bed. She has no trouble falling asleep, feeling quite pleased with herself.

Tonight, when she dreams of flying, the dream is no thin vision. It seems more like a memory. She can feel her own wings beating as she soars above the world. She can taste the thin, cold air, and hear the rush of wind, and feel the cool clamminess of clouds as they billow around her. When she looks down upon the world, it is with the fierce pride of knowing that it is _hers_ , and she is its ruler.

And the fire in her heart sings.

**Author's Note:**

> I super, super, SUPER adhere to the “Qunari have dragon blood” thing. I don’t have any particular theory as to why—I’ve seen people suggest half a dozen of their own theories and any or all work for me. Point being: in my world, Qunari are descendants of people with dragon blood running in their veins. (I am sure that if I keep pursuing this line of thought, I’ll develop a theory of my own.)
> 
> Now, let me just point out that I doubt your rank-and-file Qunari or vashoth has any clue about that. Kubide certainly has an idea, and Iron Bull as well, but they’ve got nothing concrete. And Kubide is presently not about to sit and ponder the issue!
> 
> As for any resemblance to the Joining, I’ll keep it short, and note that I’m not the first or only one to notice the parallels between that and the reaver specialization. Reavers drink dragon blood, obviously, and Wardens drink darkspawn blood—combined with a drop of Archdemon blood. Archdemons take the shape of dragons. The visual parallels are obvious. I personally speculate that the two rites, while they have largely separate effects, may have been born from the same tradition of study (of blood magic). In days of yore, perhaps someone studying the Joining experimented to see what would happen if one drank merely _dragon_ blood, instead of the usual concoction. Reavers were the result.


End file.
